PSALTERIVM

PSALMVS CI — DOMINE EXAVDI

Hear, O Lord, My Prayer

Domine, exaudi orationem meam is the fifth of the Seven Penitential Psalms, expressing extreme affliction and abandonment. In the 1962 Breviary it appears at Matins and in the Office of the Dead. The Fathers apply verse 26 ('They shall perish, but thou remainest') to Christ's divinity.

LATINE
Domine, exaudi orationem meam: et clamor meus ad te veniat.
Non avertas faciem tuam a me: in quacumque die tribulor, inclina ad me aurem tuam.
In quacumque die invocavero te, velociter exaudi me.
Quia defecerunt sicut fumus dies mei: et ossa mea sicut cremium aruerunt.
Percussus sum ut foenum, et aruit cor meum: quia oblitus sum comedere panem meum.
A voce gemitus mei adhaesit os meum carni meae.
Similis factus sum pelicano solitudinis: factus sum sicut nycticorax in domicilio.
Vigilavi, et factus sum sicut passer solitarius in tecto.
Tu autem, Domine, in aeternum permanes: et memoriale tuum in generationem et generationem.
Tu exsurgens misereberis Sion: quia tempus miserendi eius, quia venit tempus.
ENGLISH
Hear, O Lord, my prayer: and let my cry come to thee.
Turn not away thy face from me: in the day when I am in trouble, incline thy ear to me.
In what day soever I shall call upon thee, hear me speedily.
For my days are vanished like smoke: and my bones are grown dry like fuel for the fire.
I am smitten as grass, and my heart is withered: because I forgot to eat my bread.
Through the voice of my groaning, my bone hath cleaved to my flesh.
I am become like to a pelican of the wilderness: I am like a night raven in the house.
I have watched, and am become as a sparrow all alone on the housetop.
But thou, O Lord, endurest for ever: and thy memorial to all generations.
Thou shalt arise and have mercy on Sion: for it is time to have mercy on it, for the time is come.
NOTA
FONS
Douay-Rheims (1609) / Vulgata
USUS
Penitential seasons, Exile, Loneliness
CONTEXT
Psalm 102 in Hebrew numbering. Fifth Penitential Psalm. The pelican was believed to feed its young with its own blood—a Christ symbol in medieval art.